


Coda

by thedevilchicken



Series: Epistolic [6]
Category: The Following
Genre: M/M, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:25:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2528894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Final part of the <i>Epistolic</i> series. </p>
<p>The end. From Mike Weston's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coda

Mike went right away when Joe called. 

He didn't care how he was going to explain it later. He didn't care that he was right in the middle of an investigation or that he didn't tell Max he'd left until he was on the ground in England. He'd had to go. It wasn't his fault that no one would understand why that was.

The flight was long, seeming even longer with the elderly woman sitting in the next seat who insisted on showing him all the photos she had of the grandkids she'd be visiting over in London. Mike was good at feigning interest, though, smiling and saying the just right thing at just the right time where before he'd had all those highly inappropriate reactions. Ryan had helped him with that, years ago before all the running and the hiding and Lily Gray's list had even been a blip on the radar, and Mike would always be grateful to him for that. He'd shown him how to hide himself in plain sight, so that no one would ever suspect that hill walking and fishing and mountain biking weren't the only ways he spent his free time.

He phoned Max from Heathrow, bad signal there in terminal 5 making the conversation even harder than it really had to be. She didn't get why he'd gone and he couldn't tell her it was related to Ryan and Joe or she'd've been on the next plane out there, too. He needed time before that could happen. So he pleaded some kind of inter-agency cooperation bullshit between the Bureau and Scotland Yard, leaving her with just enough information that he'd have maybe a 24-hour head start window before she really started in with the interrogation, or the computer-based tracing crap she did so well. He grabbed a cab outside the airport. The drive there took about an hour. He tried to sleep on the way 'cause he knew he'd need it, but sleep just wouldn't come.

He paid the driver and left the cab, punched in the code at the gate and let himself into the house with the key they'd buried in a watertight lockbox by the towering conifer hedgerow. He'd had the address in his head for four years. Ryan had mailed it to him once they'd got where they were going in the aftermath, once London had been safe again and they'd returned, and Mike had memorised it and then burned it in a rather melodramatic display of secrecy. Lily Gray had had two houses in London, both just as secret. He'd hoped he'd never have to use the address, however; he'd missed Ryan in the time he'd been away, but he'd always hoped they'd meet again when the time was right. 

He guessed it was too late for that now.

Mike and Max hadn't stayed in New York much longer after the escape. Once they'd checked out as clean in the investigation, as Mike had known they would in spite of everything he knew and then denied knowing, they'd spent some time on leave and put their relationship back together, piece by piece. Max didn't notice or didn't care or maybe both that Mike seemed much calmer then, much less angry, much more thoroughly together though nothing had actually changed to effect that. They married and both transferred down to Quantico when they could; they bought a house, got a dog, schmoozed with neighbours; they were disgustingly happy. They started again and he made it work. Mike _made_ it work.

Two years later, he'd been promoted. He was a great asset to the Bureau, they told him, he was a great role model for the way he'd overcome all of his past adversities and then settled back down to the job. Suddenly, his day job was serial killers and child abduction and all that morbid crap the press lapped up and so then all the scary people in the whole United States were his to locate and to apprehend, while smiling for the cameras. It was sort of poetic, he thought, considering Ryan's parting gift to him. He'd learned enough from Max to keep it secret, even from her, an encrypted disk that no one even knew existed except for him and Ryan, maybe Joe. Every North American name from Lily Gray's list was there on that disk with all of Ryan's information, and Mike had promised, solemnly sworn, that he'd take care of it all now that Ryan was gone. He'd been doing well. No one could've suspected. 

Ryan and Joe were working in Europe after they left, on their portion of the list. Ryan contacted him from time to time, quietly, let him know how it was all progressing. Mike replied when he could, let he know where he'd got to, let him know if there was trouble coming their way. It didn't surprise him when Ryan and Joe got to the end of their longer list before him, though he guessed the end itself was a surprise; he'd never thought they'd make it there alive and he knew Ryan hadn't, either. Gina Mendez was the closest Mike had come to friendship since Ryan's departure. It surprised him how little he actually cared when she died, how much he was just relieved that Ryan and Joe had got away.

From time to time he'd wondered what Ryan would do if and when it was over, and he guessed what he did didn't come as a surprise once he knew. 

"Joe?" he called, locking the door behind him as he stepped over the threshold. He left his bag by the door and unholstered his gun. Joe had always been a great one for the blaze of glory approach and if there'd ever been a time for it then it was now, but there was no rash attack, just a house empty of activity, dirty dishes, neglected plants and a smell beneath the stale coffee grounds and soured milk that turned Mike's stomach. He'd known what he was walking into here, but he'd hoped vainly that it'd be easier to take somehow.

Joe was in the living room. He looked worn and tired and older now, which Mike guessed he was; he hadn't laid eyes on Joe in nearly ten years by that point. He was wearing a suit and it looked like he'd worn it for days; there was blood on it, dried into the shirt and then down his thighs where he'd wiped his hands, making the fabric stiff and awkward. It wasn't his blood, there was too much of it for that. He was wearing a ring on his finger and another on a chain around his neck. He looked up. If he hadn't known it was him, Mike would barely have recognised him.

"Mike," Joe said. His voice sounded raw. He stood, slowly, like the nerve damage he'd caused himself years ago there in his thigh was bothering him more as he aged, or else he'd been sitting there for hours, and both things were probably true. He took a moment and then he stepped toward him, screwed up his face in a derisory smile as he spotted Mike's gun and suddenly it was clear again just who this was. He was Joe again, in spite of his unfortunate attire and his age and his anguish. "Do you really think you need that, now of all times?"

Mike gave a rueful smile, a little shrug, then holstered his weapon in response. He couldn't say he thought he did.

They stood in silence for a minute or more, Joe looking him over, and Mike recalled then every moment they'd ever spent in the same room. He went through it all, through the cases, the idiotic chases, everything from the interminable fuck-up in Havenport to New York, Virginia, all of it. He'd hated Joe Carroll back then, he thought, but there'd been a point where he'd hated everyone and everything, himself included. He'd gotten past that. That was something else Ryan had done for him.

"What do you want me to do?" Mike asked. "Where is he?"

When Joe kissed him then, he tasted of coffee and scotch and blood and death and it was awkward and hot and intoxicating. It was desperate and hard, blood still there under Joe's fingernails and clinging to the stubble at his jaw, and Mike let him do it because over the years he'd gone through that phase, the moment of transfer from idolising Ryan to identifying with him and everyone knew that Ryan Hardy's defining characteristic was Joe Carroll. But he'd moved on from there once Ryan was gone. He'd grown into himself. These days, Mike was nothing if not self-aware; it made him a better agent, and a better killer too. 

He'd never been with a guy. It wasn't lack of curiosity, not even lack of opportunity or some kind of crude moral objection because Mike more or less objected to morals, rejected them, period. But the urge just hadn't seemed relevant once he'd realised who he was, once he'd taken that last step into finally being true to himself, though standing there with Joe's hand in his hair and Joe's mouth hot against his, it was easy to see how it could've happened. He could see the attraction, he guessed. It would've been easy to take advantage of the situation and he thought about it, seriously, how they'd strip and stumble into the shower to clean away the blood, what he'd allow Joe to do to him and what little he wouldn't. But in the end he just kissed him back, all lips and teeth and the touch of tongues, an active participant in what was almost an act of violence until it all slowed, and saddened, and stopped. 

When they pulled apart, Joe rested his forehead there against Mike's for a moment, his fingers curling at the back of his neck. He seemed tired. He seemed disappointed, seemed wretched round the edges.

"I'm not him, Joe," Mike said, rueful, truthful. 

Joe smiled wryly as he moved away. He rubbed his palms on the front of his shirt, though the dried-in blood there wasn't going to help the state of his cleanliness. 

"I know, Mike," he said. "Though I suppose it's not for lack of trying."

"That's not fair."

" _Life_ isn't fair."

Simplistic as that was, Mike guessed it wasn't. He had no response for that, and so he didn't respond. 

Joe turned his back and walked away, picked up a glass that looked to contain the remnants of a scotch and then set it back down with a huff of self-disgust. And Mike's phone rang; it was work and not Max when he checked the ID and since Joe didn't seem to give two fucks what he did or didn't do right at that precise moment, he answered it. 

They had a video for him, they said, and sent it through to his tablet. He retrieved it from his bag while he was still on the phone and hit play with a sick, churning feeling in his stomach. He didn't want to see this, but knew that he had to. He hung up the phone as he watched. 

"Where is he?" he asked, when the video ended. 

Joe glanced at him, then his gaze flicked to the foot of the staircase. "He's in the bedroom," he said. "I'm not going back up there." Mike wasn't about to force him to, wasn't sure he could or that he wanted to, considering.

Mike had read their letters. They'd left them with him when they'd left, said nothing about confidentiality but he'd still felt like reading them was a total invasion of privacy, even as he did it. The problem was, he couldn't stop himself once he'd started. They'd written regularly for years, there were _so many_ of them, and as much as Mike had thought it all made sense to him before, he saw everything unfolding in those letters. He pieced together their actions and reactions there with what he knew from the case files, what he knew from what Ryan had told him, snippets of things Joe had said. It was a direct line right from Joe's first letter to their final escape. It was so easy to see what they'd had was uncommon, maybe unique when all things were considered, and he'd caught himself feeling bitterly jealous of it. He would never have that, could never. They'd been freer than he'd ever be, though he guessed that was essentially his own choice. 

What was clear from the letters was they'd always understood each other, even before they'd known that was the case. It was clear that in the start Ryan was reluctant but drawn into it despite himself. It was clear that Joe had missed his calling ‘cause those letters he wrote were so deep and dark and desperate that Mike found himself jacking off to them in the garage like a total fucking pervert, more than once. Some of Ryan's hadn't been hugely tamer, and Mike imagined them all. Those letters were like a window on everything that Ryan and Joe were, both together and apart. Max was great, perfect for him in so many ways and maybe even in _that_ way if he took the time to guide her into it, she had the foundations already in place, but it would never be the same for them as it had been for Ryan and Joe.

He'd read the rest when they'd been sent over to Quantico from London, after Mendez's death. He wasn't meant to have access but he called in a few favours, made a few copies, sat in his office and read them through carefully to fill in the blanks in the picture. He saw Ryan's final evolution there, brilliant in its simplicity because that was who he'd always been beneath his so polished veneer of _do the right thing_ ; he'd just needed to own it the way Joe did, the way Mike did now. He'd been pleased for him. He wished he could've spent more time with him after that; the three of them together would've been quite something to see.

Mike waited a moment, steeling himself, and then he went upstairs.

He'd kept up with events after they'd vanished again. He called again a few days later to check on them despite the risk, spoke with Joe because Ryan was out running some kind of insane errand and Joe tried to seem calm though he was clearly panicking beneath it. They were fine, he said, they'd got out thanks to him, they were somewhere in Paris with friends of Joe's though that hadn't sounded like it made him amazingly happy or relaxed. Ryan returned halfway through the call and suddenly the mood was more upbeat, like something was resolved, like they were safe. It was too risky to call that number again after that but they kept in touch and the longer they went the clearer it was to Mike that Joe was in the driving seat at last, not Ryan. It was sort of thrilling to speculate on what he'd accomplish with Ryan there pointing it out every time he overstepped the mark, made a dick move, veered too close to insanity.

Two years later, all of Joe's remaining followers killed themselves en masse; there were sixty-three of them. They were all holding a copy of Ryan's textbook on sociopathy, like that was a meaningful message; Mike had to admit he found that pretty damn amusing.

But aside from that, it was completely bizarre, completely unexpected. Joe never did pick up where he'd left off, killing women and removing their eyes like that was a beautiful thing. Instead they turned out more like the fucking serial killer A-Team, dispatching murderers, offing dons, carving the heart out of violent crime across Europe. Ryan's plan had been small-fry in comparison, though the network he'd built paved the way for it. But Joe had mobilised a whole goddamn army of vigilantes across the entire globe. It was staggering in its scale. And Mike thought maybe he was grateful because there were so many worse things Joe could've done, so many places he could've taken this new, shiny Ryan, so many ways he could've fucked him up and made him ugly. He'd kept him whole instead, unleashed but recognisable. They kept each other in check. Maybe that was love, not that Mike would know it.

Ryan lay there dead on the bed. Mike nodded and looked away; he'd just had to see for himself, confirm it, but he didn't need to see any more. 

It was a routine operation, or it should've been. They'd gone over to Zurich as usual, the anaesthetist had put Ryan under and the surgeon began. It should've been simple, just a quick replacement of his pacemaker. But it had all gone wrong.

Ryan had died on the table. On the video, an hour passed in surgery and then Ryan was dead, they called time of death and covered him with a sheet with his chest still gaping open there in their illicit, expensive little clinic. They'd opened him up to try to get him back and failed; his blood was everywhere. It was less than a minute until Joe stormed in after that, then thirty seconds of angry, livid conversation ended when he drew a gun and shot the surgeon in the head. He went down. The anaesthetist and both nurses followed soon after, the last finished off with a bloody scalpel he'd picked up from the instrument tray at the side of the table. Then he turned calmly, so eerily goddamn calmly, back to Ryan's body. He stitched up his chest, with all the same precision he'd learned so many years before. He took his time and did it right, lingered over it there in the room full of corpses.

And then, he'd left. He'd taken Ryan's body with him. He'd brought him home.

"It had to be you," Joe said, as he came to the doorway behind him. Mike turned; Joe could barely look into the room, so he looked at Mike instead. He handed him the knife with a significant look, and then he moved past him into the bedroom. Mike took it, feeling its heft, checking the sharpness of the blade against his thumbnail. 

"I think you understand," Joe said. He took the chain from round his neck, looped it around Ryan's with infinite, affectionate care. He pressed down on the ring over Ryan's chest with his palm for a second, then he sat, and he looked at Mike.

Mike nodded and he followed, knife in hand. 

"I understand," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and, we're done! You've made it to the end of the series, I thought I'd never get there. 
> 
> Any suggestions for a new and separate story, fire away in the comments! Otherwise, my sincere thanks for sticking with it, and I hope you've enjoyed the ride.


End file.
